Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

May 23, 2001

ROCKEFELLER SAYS TAX BILL FAILS WEST VIRGINIA

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Declaring that the $1.35 trillion tax cut package is too large and too skewed toward the wealthy, Senator Jay Rockefeller today voted against the Senate version of the legislation and vowed to work to improve the final Senate-House compromise that is expected to be sent to the President by the end of the week.

"The Senate version of the tax bill is an improvement over the House and Bush plans, but far too much of the tax cut still goes to the wealthiest Americans, while millions of hard-working American taxpayers – seniors, families with children, married couples and singles – receive little or no benefit," Rockefeller said. "If budget surpluses fail to materialize as projected, this bill will threaten our ability to fund urgent national priorities such as education and road construction, and could force us to dip into the Medicare and Social Security Trust funds in the coming years just as the Baby Boomers begin to retire."

Rockefeller cited numerous reasons why the tax bill was a bad plan for West Virginia, and all Americans, including:

The cost of the tax plan in the first ten years is an estimated $1.35 trillion, yet the cost explodes in the second ten years to $4 trillion.
The bill fails to address the cost of reforming the alternative minimum tax (AMT) which hurts many middle-income taxpayers.
Estate tax repeal does not occur until 2011, so its full cost does not appear within the confines of the budget resolution.
Marriage penalty relief -- which should be a higher priority than estate tax repeal because it helps all married taxpayers across-the-board -- does not begin to phase in until 2006.
The bill benefits the very wealthy with the cut in top rate from 39.6% to 36%. The top rate affects those who earn over $297,000 which is only 0.3% of West Virginians.

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Rockefeller press release - page 2

Provisions for low-income families account for $70 billion, just 5% of the total package. Yet nearly 68,000 West Virginia children won’t be helped by the partial refundability provision. With incomes of less than $10,000, their families still do not earn enough.
West Virginians without children under 18, who account for 71% of West Virginia’s population, do not benefit at all from the child credit piece of this bill.
The Social Security and Medicare benefits of 362,795 senior citizens in West Virginia are jeopardized by this tax cut.

Rockefeller also noted that on Monday, the highly-respected Citizens for Tax Justice -- a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group -- released a detailed state-by-state report on the impact of the $1.35 trillion tax cut plan. The report concluded that the state of Connecticut will receive the largest average tax cut per taxpayer while the state of West Virginia will receive the smallest average tax cut per taxpayer. The report is available at www.ctj.org.

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ROCKEFELLER SAYS TAX BILL FAILS WEST VIRGINIA